Who Can See Your 2017 Snapchat Memories? You Can Share Your Top Snaps Of The Year With Your Followers

The fact that 2017 was a rough year is pretty much a well-known fact by now. But, for most people, wedged somewhere between the shocking and disappointing headlines are some triumphant personal moments. And because it's 2017, they were all more than likely captured on some form of social media — like Snapchat. And now, the social media platform wants to help you remember your good times this past year by providing you with a collage of memories in the form of Snaps you saved throughout the year in your memories folder on the app. But, now that you've seen the specially curated collage of your 2017 snaps, you may be wondering — who can see your 2017 Snapchat Memories? Is this Snap story public, or is it just for you?

A lot can happen in 365 days. We venture on trips and grace karaoke stages to embarrass ourselves (or prove ourselves), we eat a lot of ramen, and we share a lot of good times with our friends. With Snapchat, all of our moments can be broadcasted to our followers so that the little moments — like your best friend belting musical theater tunes on the way home from the bar in the back of a cab — can go viral amongst your social circles and be giggled about forever. Our photo albums are now digital, and they live within our phones and social media apps. When you need to relive a moment or need something to smile at so you can remember at least a few nice things about the year we all survived, things like this come in handy.

Starting Dec. 27, Snapchat introduced 2017 Memories: A curated collage of your most precious Snapchat memories from the past 365 days sliced together in a slideshow that's sure to provoke nostalgia-induced tears. As Snapchat. And the best part of this whole new feature is that 2017 Snapchat Memories aren't public unless you want them to be — so enjoy a scroll down memory lane for yourself by yourself, because whether you want to publish it to your story or share with a few friends is in your control.

The story is curated by Snapchat's algorithms, which automatically chooses photos to fit the theme of the story — your year in review — based on the digital details in the photo like its location, its timestamp, and even its caption. You can review your year's story and even edit it if you don't want specific photos included. Then, if you're happy with it and decide you want to share that time you jumped into shark-infested waters with your mom while you were on vacation, you can share it to your story or send it to select friends like you would any old snap.

Alternatively, if you'd like to keep the events of your year to yourself, you can save the story for your eyes only.

To find your 2017 memories story, you can tap on the "Memories" icon at the bottom of your screen. There, in your personal library of memories, you'll find your unique story under the "ALL" tab. Watch, edit, save, and publish, if you so choose! If you're like me and forgot what you even had stored in your memories file, this could be a surprising slideshow that brings the laughs.

As we go into 2018, surely documenting every trip and gathering and ramen order, we should appreciate the events of 2017 that kept us motivated to go on. Relive the good times of 2017 one more time before the clock strikes midnight and we're launched into a new year of memory making. Happy New Year!